Newsflash! Leaving your PS3 running all the time is expensive

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a study regarding the power usage of consoles. During the course of the study it found that gamers who leave their consoles powered on all the time spend more than $100 a year to leave their game console idle.

At first glance this appeared to be a damning study, especially if the NRDC defined "on" as a console left in standby mode; however the actual definition of "on" for this study was leaving the console completely up and running.

The cost of leaving your console on all the time varies, but no matter which console you choose, never turning it off is costly. Leaving your PS3 on all the time will cost between $130 and $160 depending on which version you have, compared to under $15 if it is turned off when it's not being played. Similarly the Xbox 360 costs between $100 and $140 if left on all the time but under $14 if turned off when you're done. The Wii is the most power efficient; only costing $10 if left on all the time, compared to $3 if turned off when it isn't in use. Leaving it on is still wasting $7, however.